Natural Handmade Tallow Soaps

Hi, I'm Liz, welcome to Eight Acres. I live on a small farm in Kumbia, Australia, with my husband, Pete, and our dogs Taz and Gus. This website started off as a blog for sharing all the things we make and grow on our small farm. We keep a small herd of beef cattle and a few dairy cows. We also have lots of chickens, bees and a vege garden.

Now as well as sharing what I'm learning, I can share what we make through our virtual farmgate (online shop), where I sell natural handmade tallow soap and raw chemical-free honey and beeswax.

When I first wrote this post back in 2011, Queensland had too much water, but usually water is very precious to us. Being in a rural area, we rely on our own rainwater supplies for drinking water and septic to treat our sewerage. I’m quite happy with that arrangement, as it means we don’t have to drink the unnecessary levels of fluoride and chlorine in town water. It also means that we have to...

It’s not hard to see why backyard chicken-keeping has become increasingly popular. Raising chickens comes with a host of benefits — whether it be eggs, meat, or companionship. However, if you’re looking to keep your own flock, there’s a lot to know before you get started. No matter what reason drives you to get chickens, ask yourself the following questions...

The turkeys arrived at our property as 12 eggs, bursting out of an egg cartoon (being larger than chicken eggs), towards the end of June 2010. We put them all straight into the incubator and 28 days later 4 chicks hatched. They were just like chicken chicks, maybe a little bigger, but just as cute.

We generally try to avoid unnecessary chemicals, but one area in which we've been slow to find alternatives is with our animals. Until a few years ago, we were regularly drenching the cattle with ivermectin, dosing the dogs with flea treatments and wormers and occasionally had to dip all the chickens in malthison so get rid of lice. Since we got our milking cow, Bella, we became even more...